Tag: public domain day

Artificial Intelligence and the Public Domain

February 6, 2026 / Landen Stafford / Comments Off

Note: On January 1, 2026, a new batch of works entered the public domain in the United States—those that were published or registered in 1930. These works, if they met all required copyright formalities, received the maximum term of protection of 95 years. They now join countless other works already in the public domain in the United States and are free of copyright. This means they may be freely copied, adapted, distributed, performed, and displayed without permission from a rightsholder.

Artificial Intelligence and the Public Domain

Another Public Domain Day has come and gone, and the public domain in the United States continues to expand and become an even more valuable and essential part of the copyright lifecycle that makes creative works available to be freely used and inspire new works. Given its place of importance in the world of intellectual property and the creative cycle, one might wonder how the public domain and the works that comprise it can interact with the most influential technology of today, artificial intelligence. Generally speaking, the relationship between AI and the public domain is reciprocal, where the public domain provides works that serve as training data for AI models, which in turn generate new works that are often in the public domain. Expanding the nuances for both parts of this transaction can make the relationship clearer.

Generative AI Outputs and the Public Domain

To receive copyright protection in the United States, a work must contain human authorship, among other requirements. The outputs of generative AI can be protected by copyright only where a human author has determined sufficient expressive elements. If a human adds creative elements to the AI-created output, such as arrangements or modifications, then they may be able to claim copyright in their contributions. The provision of prompts, however, does not provide the requisite human authorship for copyrightability because the subsequent output is considered the expression of the artificial intelligence, not the user. Therefore, strictly AI-generated works—those that are created solely by a machine without sufficient human intervention—are not eligible for copyright protection and are in the public domain in the United States. In January 2025, the U.S. Copyright Office released Part 2 of their report on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, which further explores the copyrightability of outputs created by generative AI.

Training AI Using Public Domain Works

The public domain is composed of a large amount of high-quality content, including some of history’s most prominent works of literature, musical compositions, works of the U.S. Federal Government, obscure artwork, and even recent works that have been dedicated to the public domain by the author. Taking advantage of this vast source of content as training data for AI models is desirable not only because of the shear amount of content available but because the diversity of the materials is equally as expansive, both of which are crucial for high-performing, accurate AI tools. Also advantageous is that public domain works are free of copyright, meaning they can be used to train AI models without negotiating a license, paying royalties, relying on fair use, or risking claims of copyright infringement (see Chat GPT is eating the world for a list of current litigation involving AI companies).

An obstacle that may inhibit the use of public domain materials is that many of the works exist only in physical form in libraries and archives. Digital versions are necessary to be useful in the context of AI training. Institutions such as the Harvard Law School Library have recognized this obstacle, and they have responded by compiling the Institutional Book Corpus, a collection of almost one million public domain books that have been digitized and made available for anyone to use as data to train AI models. The corpus, released through their Institutional Data Initiative, contains books in 379 unique languages covering a variety of topics including language and literature, law, philosophy, psychology, religion, science, social science, political science, agriculture, and medicine. By stewarding these public domain books in such a proactive way, institutions like the Harvard Law School Library are able to increase access to high-quality content that can be used for the ethical development of AI technology, which is crucial as demands for transparency around the data on which AI models are trained are louder than ever.

Interested in learning more about the public domain? Explore the Public Domain Day website to learn more about the Public Domain Project at The Ohio State University and to view additional copyright and public domain resources.

By Landen Stafford (Copyright Services Specialist at Copyright Services, The Ohio State University Libraries)

The Hardy Boys: Public Domain in 2023

December 6, 2023 / Maria Scheid / Comments Off

This post is authored by Heidi Bowles, current student at the UC Davis School of Law and former research assistant at Ohio State University Libraries’ Copyright Services.

The first three novels of the popular children’s detective series The Hardy Boys (The Tower Treasure, The House on the Cliff, and The Secret of the Old Mill) entered the public domain on January 1, 2023, meaning that they are free from copyright protection in the United States. The Ohio State University’s Rare Books and Manuscripts Library has copies of the original 1927 editions of The Tower Treasure and The House on the Cliff.

The Tower Treasure (The Hardy Boys), 1927

The House on the Cliff (The Hardy Boys), 1927

The Hardy Boys was created by the Stratemeyer Syndicate and published by Grosset and Dunlap. The Syndicate was a book packaging company that produced many popular children’s series in the twentieth century, like Nancy Drew and The Rover Boys. To create so many books on a short timeframe, the Syndicate operated as a well-oiled machine that followed a standard process for creating a book: a Syndicate executive, often Edward Stratemeyer himself, produced a short outline of a story, which was provided to a contracted ghostwriter who then wrote it into a book for a flat fee. The book was then returned to a Syndicate executive for final edits before being sent to the publisher. When launching a new series, they would release three initial books to test whether or not there was a market for their idea. These first three test books for The Hardy Boys are now in the public domain.

In the early years of the series, Edward Stratemeyer provided the outlines to Leslie McFarlane, who wrote under the pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon. The first eleven books in the series were written by McFarlane, who also contributed to other Syndicate series under various pseudonyms. After Stratemeyer’s death in 1930, other Syndicate writers, including his daughter Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, contributed outlines to several uncredited ghostwriters writing as Franklin W. Dixon.

Copyright

The Copyright Act of 1909, which applies to works created before January 1, 1978, provided new works that followed proper formalities with a 28-year period of copyright protection with the option to renew the copyright for another 28-year period. Changes in the law (in the Copyright Act of 1976 and the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA)) extended the second period, making the maximum copyright term for published works covered by the 1909 Copyright Act 95 years from the date of publication.

Under the terms of an agreement between the authors and Stratemeyer Syndicate, copyright in the works appears to have been transferred and then registered in the name of the publisher (Grosset and Dunlap). Under the agreement, actual writers of the series did not receive a share of the royalties for sales of the books.[1] Franklin W. Dixon (a pseudonym) was listed as the author in the copyright registrations for many of The Hardy Boys novels, rather than the actual writers.

Under the 1909 Copyright Act, a publisher who was assigned copyright could control the copyright for the initial term, but the author, if still living, could claim the copyright for the renewal term. If the author was not living at the time of renewal, the copyright in the renewal term could be claimed only by those designated under the law. Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, who took charge of the Syndicate after her father’s death, renewed the copyrights in 1955 and claimed them for the renewal term.

The Syndicate’s practices of hiring contract writers and publishing series under a pseudonym let them control their stories and their legacies. They were able to authorize many spinoffs, adaptations, and revisions. In the 1950s and 1960s, during the renewal copyright term, the Syndicate shortened and revised the original Hardy Boys series. Although they were based on the original public domain books, these revisions are still protected by copyright.

Releasing these revisions did not restart the copyright in the original books—as derivative works, the elements taken from the original books are not copyrightable, only the new creative elements in the revised versions. The revised wording, revised characterization, illustrations and other new elements are protected by a separate copyright that will last for 95 years after publication.

Similarly, characters and events from the revised version or later iterations of the series are still protected by copyright. In the 1927 Tower Treasure, Frank and Joe Hardy were sixteen and fifteen years old but they were eighteen and seventeen in 1959. Only the sixteen-year-old and fifteen-year-old brothers are public domain.

The later revisions also altered the sidekick characters. One snarky review explains:

All the same, the Hardy Boys’ gang was a model of diversity for its day. In addition to best pal Chet Morton (or as he’s referred to in the original books, “the fat youth”), there was strongman Biff Hooper and two bona fide ethnics—Phil Cohen, a brainy Jewish kid; and Tony Prito, who is so darned ethnic that his poor Italian-accented English is the subject of good-natured mirth in the 1927 version of “The Tower Treasure.” In the 1959 rewrite, the melting pot has done its work and only the ethnic names remain. Tony Prito becomes “a lively boy with a good sense of humor.” Phil Cohen is “a quiet, intelligent boy.”

Characters and their characterization are copyrightable elements of a story, so only the version of the characters as they appear in these three 1927 books are in the public domain. Later updates to the specific characters are still protected by copyright. The stereotypical versions of Tony Prito and Phil Cohen are in the public domain, but the homogenized versions are not. Anyone making an adaptation or using these characters should be careful to avoid using any later versions of the character to avoid copyright issues.

This does not mean that any adaptation has to include these characters as they exist in the 1927 books. They can be changed and updated; it is just important to make sure that any changes to the characters have not already been made in copyrighted materials. To take clothing as an example, an adaptation would not have to dress the brothers in their original 1920s clothing simply because that version is in the public domain. There would be no copyright issues with styling the brothers as punks with pink mohawks and leather jackets (assuming that no copyrighted version like this already exists). There might, however, be copyright issues with dressing them in sweaters and denim as they appear in the 1950s.

Public Domain

Now that these books are in the public domain, they can be freely copied, adapted, distributed, performed, and displayed without having to seek permission from a rightsholder, negotiating a license, or paying royalties. This means that they can be posted online so they are more easily available for researchers and general readers, and they can be adapted by creators.

Public domain children’s books are particularly valuable because they are more accessible to children who do not live near a library and cannot afford to buy their own books, and, as the Authors Alliance pointed out, there is a severe lack of children’s books in many non-English languages. Public domain books are easier and cheaper to translate into languages with fewer available books.

Public domain materials are also available to be updated to address past injustices. The original Hardy Boys books were filled with racist and sexist stereotypes, and other reflections of 1920’s white male middle-class prejudice.[2] These books have sentimental value for many, and their enduring popularity makes them important material for researchers. Although these books might not be the best option to give to children, it is important to preserve and understand the underlying values of a series that many remember fondly as a part of their childhoods.

The public domain is a valuable and essential part of the lifecycle of copyright that makes creative works available to be freely used and inspire new works. This year, many important and interesting works entered the public domain. A few other notable works include:

Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse
Sinclair Lewis’s Elmer Gantry
Langston Hughes’s Fine Clothes to the Jew
Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein’s Show Boat
Georgia Douglas Johnson’s Plumes: A play in one act
John Dewey’s The Public and Its Problems

Learn more about how Ohio State is celebrating the public domain at go.osu.edu/PublicDomainDay.

[1] For more about the history and business practices of the Stratemeyer Syndicate, see Carol Billman’s 1986 book, The Secret of the Stratemeyer Syndicate: Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, and the Million Dollar Fiction Factory (link to OSUL catalog).

[2] For an analysis of The Hardy Boys series, see Joe Arthur’s 1991 OSU dissertation, “Hardly Boys: An Analysis of Behaviors, Social Changes, and Class Awareness in the Old Text of the Hardy Boys Series.”

Popular Adaptations of Public Domain Works

January 1, 2023 / Maria Scheid / Comments Off

Note: Today is Public Domain Day; the day that we celebrate new works that have entered the public domain. This year, we welcome works first registered or published in the United States in 1927. Works published during that time, that met all required formalities, enjoyed a maximum term of copyright protection of 95 years. With copyright term running to the end of the calendar year, works first published in 1927 officially enter the public domain in the U.S. on January 1, 2023.

Because public domain works are free of copyright, they may be freely copied, distributed, performed, displayed, and adapted. This blog post, by Heidi Bowles, discusses popular adaptation of public domain works.

Copyright in Derivative Works

Copyright provides authors with a bundle of exclusive rights in their creative works, one of which is to create—or authorize others to create—adaptations of their work. When a work enters the public domain, it becomes free for creators to adapt without worrying about seeking permission, paying royalties, or meeting an exception under copyright law. The lack of copyright restrictions makes it easier for authors to use public domain works for their adaptations. It is important to note that copyright terms can vary from country to country, so materials that are in the public domain in one country may still be protected by copyright in another.

Derivative works, in terms of copyright, are any works that are based on preexisting material.[1] When an author creates a derivative work, they only own the copyright in their new creative expressions (assuming that they used the work lawfully—any unlawful use of copyrighted material is not protected by copyright). Authors of derivative works do not have any copyright in the underlying work or in the elements of their new work that they took from it.[2] For a list of common types of derivative works, see the U.S. Copyright Office’s Circular on Derivative Works and Compilations.

Take, for example, Kenneth Branagh’s delightful and faithful 1993 movie adaptation of William Shakespeare’s play Much Ado About Nothing. This film used Shakespeare’s original dialogue and setting, which is in the public domain. No adaptation can create a new copyright in the original work. There is, however, a new copyright in the typesetting of the script and recording of the performed dialogue, which could make distributing a copy of the script or film a copyright infringement. However, because the elements taken from the original work remain free from copyright, anyone is free to transcribe Shakespeare’s original dialogue from the movie and distribute it without worrying about copyright.

Less faithful works have more independent and copyrightable elements, like Disney’s 1994 animated movie The Lion King, adapted from Shakespeare’s play Hamlet. In a loose adaptation like this, it is more complicated to determine which elements are public domain and which belong to Disney, but essentially, the copyrightable elements taken directly from Hamlet remain public domain, while the new original elements added by Disney are protected by copyright.

Copyright does not protect ideas or concepts, only their tangible, fixed expression. It can be helpful to consider which elements of a story could be copyrightable:[3]

Not copyrightable:

Scènes à faire (elements that are customary or obligatory for a genre)
General themes
Overall plot
Names, titles, slogans, short phrases, and catch phrases

Copyrightable:

The specific expression of scènes à faire, an idea, theme, or overall plot
Characters
Dialogue
A recording of the performance

Therefore, Disney does not have an exclusive right in Hamlet retellings with an animated animal cast, but they do have an exclusive right in the particular way that they did it.

The iconic scene where Scar kills Mufasa is a good example to look at. Disney does not have a copyright in the idea of the king being killed by his brother so the brother can take his place, which was taken from Hamlet (neither would Shakespeare, for the record, if there had been copyright laws in 1600—fratricide is a common and intangible idea and therefore not copyrightable). They also would not likely have a copyright to Scar’s final words to his brother, “Long live the king,” even if they were original to them, because as a short phrase it is not likely substantial enough to be copyrightable. They do, however, have a copyright in other specific elements that they used to express this plot point—Scar holding Mufasa up by his claws, sneering, and dramatically letting go so that Mufasa falls off the cliff into a stampede blow. This specific and original expression of fratricide is what is copyrightable, not its use in the story.

Fair Use

Public domain materials are not the only available option for creating derivative works without the rightsholder’s permission. There are exceptions in the law that allow copyrighted works to be transformed without paying royalties or asking permission from the copyright owner.

The fair use doctrine allows for the use of copyrighted works in certain circumstances, which is determined using a four-factor test that considers the purpose of the use, the nature of the copyrighted work, the amount and substantiality used, and the effect of the use on the market for the copyrighted work. Fair use is purposely vague to avoid unnecessarily limiting the use of copyrighted materials, but this vagueness could also result in uncertainty about whether a use is a fair use or an infringement until it is challenged in court.

So, while there are certainly many derivative works that are considered fair use, the lack of certainty with the fair use doctrine could mean that some creators would prefer the option of using public domain materials when creating derivative works.

Other Examples Based on Public Domain Works

DISCLAIMER: this list is nowhere near comprehensive and is heavily biased in favor of my personal tastes

Shakespeare’s plays have been frequently adapted. A musical adaptation of one of his best-known plays, Romeo and Juliet, gave us one of the most recognizable love themes in modern American culture (Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture” TH. 42, which itself is in the public domain and used in many movies and TV shows). Some other notable adaptations of Romeo and Juliet include:

West Side Story (1957, 1961, and 2021)
Gnomeo and Juliet (2011)
The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride (1998)

Other popular movies adapted from Shakespeare’s plays include 10 Things I Hate About You (1999; Taming of the Shrew), She’s the Man (2006; Twelfth Night), and Ophelia (2018; Hamlet).

Jane Austen’s classic novel, Pride and Prejudice, is another frequently adapted story. Some recognizable works adapted from Pride and Prejudice include:

The Lizzie Bennet Diaries (2012)
Fire Island (2022)
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016)
Bride and Prejudice (2004)
Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001).

Other Notable Movies and TV Shows:

Clueless (1995; Jane Austen’s Emma)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975; legend of King Arthur)
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000; Homer’s The Odyssey)
Anne With an E (2017-2019; Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables)
Treasure Planet (2002; Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island)
Shrek the Third (2007; legend of King Arthur)

For more information on when a work becomes public domain, see Copyright Term and the Public Domain from Cornell Libraries. For a discussion of what is fair game and what is infringement in similar stories, see Protecting Your Stories by Mark Litwak.

Have any questions? Contact Copyright Services at libcopyright@osu.edu.

This post is authored by Heidi Bowles, current student at the UC Davis School of Law and former research assistant at Ohio State University Libraries’ Copyright Services.

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[1] “Derivative work” is defined in 17 U.S.C. § 101 as “a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications, which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a ‘derivative work.’”

[2] 17 U.S.C. § 103

[3] For more information on the scope of copyright, see the Copyright Office’s Circular on Works Not Protected by Copyright.

Celebrating Public Domain Day 2021

January 1, 2021 / Maria Scheid / Comments Off

Today is Public Domain Day; the day that we celebrate new works that have entered the public domain. This year, we welcome works first registered or published in the United States in 1925. Works published during that time, that met all required formalities, enjoyed a maximum term of copyright protection of 95 years. With copyright term running to the end of the calendar year, works first published in 1925 officially enter the public domain in the U.S. on January 1, 2021.

Public domain works are free of copyright. This means they may be freely copied, adapted, distributed, performed and displayed, without permission from a rightsholder.

A Selection of Public Domain Works

Below are just some of the creative works that have entered the public domain in the United States this year:

Literature:

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis
The Informer by Liam O’Flaherty
Manhattan Transfer by John Dos Passos
An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway
Gentleman Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos

Film:

The Circle, directed by Frank Borzage
Clash of the Wolves, directed by Noel Smith
Go West, directed by Buster Keaton
Seven Chances, directed by Buster Keaton
Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life, directed by Merian Cooper and Ernest Shoedsack
The Freshman, directed by Fred Newmeyer and Sam Taylor and starring Harold Lloyd

Music:

“Sweet Georgia Brown” by Ben Bernie, Kenneth Casey & Maceo Pinkard
“That Certain Feeling” by Ira and George Gershwin
“Sugar Foot Stomp” by Joe Oliver and Louis Armstrong
“Always” by Irving Berlin

Celebrating the Public Domain at OSU

The Public Domain Day Project at OSU continues this year to highlight and share public domain musical compositions.

We are offering a variety of 1925 works from the Music & Dance Library collections and creative projects, including: musical settings of fourteen children’s poems by A. A. Milne (featuring the first appearance of Winnie-the-Pooh) for voice and piano; a set of art songs inspired by the city of Paris, by American composer Kathleen Lockhart Manning; a piano solo by American avant-garde composer Henry Cowell; and popular sheet music by two Cleveland-based musicians, including a song inspired by a sensational 1920s serial fiction story in The Cleveland Press.

Visit the Music Scores & Audio page on the Public Domain Day Project site for access to available items, with more to be added throughout 2021.

Interested in learning more about the public domain? Explore the Public Domain Day website to learn more about the Public Domain Project at OSU, access public domain music scores and select audio recordings (dedicated to the public domain via Creative Commons CC0), and to view additional copyright and public domain resources.

Public Domain Day 2019 Recap

December 31, 2019 / Maria Scheid / Comments Off

2019 began with a celebration; after a 20-year pause, works published in the United States in 1923 entered the public domain. In recognition of this occasion, Ohio State University Libraries began the Public Domain Day project, collaborating with partners across the university to bring attention to works whose term of copyright protection has expired and to encourage creative uses of public domain materials in the University Libraries’ collections.

In January of this year, the Public Domain Day project website was launched to share more information about the project and the partnerships involved. With a focus on public domain music, the project website highlighted a selection of musical scores that we believe entered the public domain in the U.S. in 2019.

Additionally, project partners worked together to provide a number of events throughout the year. Here is a recap of all the events for Public Domain Day 2019:

January 25, 2019: Public Domain Day Information Session. Copyright Services offered an information session with an overview of the ways a work may enter the public domain in the United States and how public domain materials may be used and shared to promote innovative research and creative expression. We also shared our plans for celebration at OSU with the Public Domain Day Project.
March 1, 2019: Public Domain Chamber Music and Chat. Two compositions, published in 1923, were the focus for this concert event. Composer Paul Hindemith’s Cello Sonata op. 25 no. 3 and String Quartet op. 22 were performed by OSU School of Music Professor Mark Rudoff and the Janus Quartet. The event included opening remarks on the significant public domain developments in 2019 and additional background on the two pieces performed. With the assistance of Professor Beth Black, Undergraduate Engagement Librarian for University Libraries, this event was also offered as a session for the Second-Year Transformational Experience Program (STEP).
April 11, 2019: OSU Symphonic Band concert featuring ‘McKinley’s Own’ march by Karl King. The OSU Symphonic Band, conducted by OSU School of Music professor Scott A. Jones, performed a new edition of composer Karl L. King’s march McKinley’s Own. Video of the performance is available online, with audio of the performance available on the Public Domain Day project website. The new edition, edited by Professor Alan Green and arranged by Scott A. Jones and Craig Levesque, was dedicated to the public domain through the CC0 waiver. The score and parts (imposed) are made available on the Public Domain Day project website.
November 4, 2019: Using Public Domain Materials in Your Teaching and Research. This workshop, offered by Copyright Services, provided participants with information and resources for identifying, finding, and using public domain text, images, and other creative works.
November 6, 2019: Safety Last! Film screening with the Wexner Center for the Arts. Safety Last!, released in 1923, is a silent film starring Harold Lloyd. This screening at the Wexner Center for the Arts featured a 1989 soundtrack composed by Carl Davis, with orchestration based on the line-up of the Paul Whiteman Orchestra of the 1920s and inspired by popular music of that era. The Ohio State University Libraries’ Silent Film Sheet Music Collection offers a number of musical scores that are arranged for the typical film theatre orchestras of the early 20^th century. Three 1923 scores from that collection have been digitized and made available on the Public Domain Day project website. Scores from 1923 include:
- Clark, C. Frederick, Midnight (Novelty Fox Trot)
- Coots, J. Fred and Dave Ringle (arr. Ted Eastwood), Home Town Blues
- Savino, Domenico, Misterioso all Valse (Dramatic Suspense)

On January 1, 2020, we will once again celebrate Public Domain Day. In 2020, we will welcome into the public domain works published in the United States in 1924. To keep up to date on new events offered in 2020 and to read more about the project, visit the Public Domain Day project website at go.osu.edu/Public DomainDay .

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By Maria Scheid, Copyright Services Coordinator at Copyright Services, The Ohio State University Libraries

The Wait is Over! Public Domain Day 2019

January 1, 2019 / Maria Scheid / Comments Off

What do F. Scott Fitzgerald, Agatha Christie, Buster Keaton, and Jelly Roll Morton all have in common? They all have works that are entering the public domain in the U.S. today on Public Domain Day!

Today is Public Domain Day and this year’s celebration is a special one for those of us in the United States. After a 20-year pause, works published in the United States will once again be entering the public domain on a rolling basis. This year, we welcome works first registered or published in the United States in 1923.

As public domain works, these books, films, compositions, and works of art can be used without copyright restrictions. This means, for example, that instructors can make copies of literary works for their students, ensembles can create new arrangements and publicly perform musical works, and students can adapt and remix works freely into their own projects and assignments. Works in the public domain can be used to encourage and support learning, scholarship, and creative endeavors.

Why the 20-year wait?

Copyright protects many different types of creative works, including books, film, music, and art. And while the U.S. Constitution requires copyright be granted only for “limited Times,” the term of copyright protection has increased over the years. In 1998, Congress passed the Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA), which extended the term of protection for published works by an additional 20 years. For works published before 1978, this meant a term of protection of 95 years from publication date. We have now reached the point where eligible works are reaching the 95-year mark.

In addition to these published works, we will see certain unpublished works enter the public domain in the U.S. on this day; specifically, unpublished works from authors who died during 1948 and unpublished works created in 1898 for anonymous and pseudonymous authors and works made for hire, and unpublished works when the date of the author’s death is unknown.[1]

Celebrating the Public Domain at OSU

Copyright Services has collaborated with partners across OSU to share public domain works in the University Libraries collections, focusing on musical compositions published or registered in the U.S. in 1923. Tomorrow, January 2, you can visit the Public Domain Day Project website (go.osu.edu/PublicDomainDay) to learn more about the partners involved in this project, the events planned for 2019, our plans for releasing new recordings of select musical works (to be dedicated to the public domain via Creative Commons CC0), and to access music scores and audio. New works will be added throughout 2019.

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By Maria Scheid, Copyright Services Coordinator at Copyright Services, The Ohio State University Libraries

[1] Depending on the work you are dealing with, there may be some additional considerations in determining the copyright status of a work. Two great resources for thinking through copyright term and public domain are the American Library Association’s Public Domain Slider and Peter Hirtle’s Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States chart.

Public Domain Day 2018

January 1, 2018 / Maria Scheid / Comments Off

It is the beginning of another year, which means the welcoming of new works into the public domain for Public Domain Day 2018. Today, countries around the world will expand their public domain with creative works whose term of copyright protection ended in 2017. As public domain works, these books, films, compositions, and works of art can be copied, shared, and remixed without copyright restrictions.

We have written before about the extension of the term of copyright protection under U.S. law and its impact on our public domain (we’ve also written about the ability of copyright owners to bypass this lengthy wait and dedicate their works to the public domain via Creative Commons CC0). As a result of this extension of copyright and Congress’s decision to apply the extension of copyright protection retroactively to existing works, those of us in the United States will need to wait until January 1, 2019 before we see new published works enter the public domain.

For now, the U.S. public domain will add a much smaller group of works—unpublished works whose author died in 1947 and were not registered with the U.S. Copyright Office prior to 1978.

For an interesting read on some of the published works that are entering the public domain in countries around the world, head over to The Public Domain Review for their picks for the Class of 2018.

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By Maria Scheid, Copyright Services Specialist at Copyright Services, The Ohio State University Libraries

Public Domain Day 2017

January 1, 2017 / Maria Scheid / 1 Comment

Today on January 1^st, we celebrate Public Domain Day—the day each year where works enter the public domain for many countries around the world following the expiration of their term of copyright protection.

Public domain works are works free of copyright restrictions; works capable of being freely reproduced, shared, and built upon by users. As we have discussed on this blog before, a robust public domain supports the underlying purpose of U.S. copyright law to promote the progress of knowledge and learning.[1]

But while many counties will see new works added to the public domain this year, there will be no published works entering the public domain in the United States. In fact, no published works will be added to the public domain in the United States until 2019.

Why the delay? The U.S. Constitution states that copyright protections may exist only for “limited times,” but our copyright law has been amended several times to extend the length of the term of protection. Under our first federal copyright statute, copyright protection lasted for an initial term of 14 years, renewable for another 14 years. The current term of protection for copyrighted works is the lifetime of the author plus an additional 70 years. As a result of this extension of copyright and Congress’s decision to apply the extension of copyright protection retroactively to existing works, works published in the United States from 1923 to 1977 will remain protected for 95 years after their date of publication. This means that works we would normally expect to enter the public domain today (i.e., published works whose author died in 1946) will not enter the public domain until much later.

For more information on Public Domain Day and works entering the public domain in other countries this year, visit:

The Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law School: https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/
Public Domain Review Class of 2017: https://publicdomainreview.org/collections/class-of-2017/
Also see Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States (updated January 3, 2016) from Peter Hirtle (Cornell Copyright Information Center).

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By Maria Scheid, Rights Management Specialist at the Copyright Resources Center, The Ohio State University Libraries

[1] For this reason, authors today may chose to dedicate their work to the public domain through means such as the Creative Commons Public Domain Dedicator (CC0) tool rather than wait for the term of copyright protection to expire.

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